The thunderstorm that crossed through Western Sydney has left considerable damage around Blacktown and Doonside.
This morning, I did a 3 km walk around Doonside which was one of the hardest areas hit by the event (A microburst event with damaging to destructive straight line winds) and noted the following:
- Considerable number of trees especially Eucalyptus trees down.
- Damage to homes with fallen eucalyptus trees leaning against buildings or lying across the ground.
- Road closures.
- Downed powerlines.
- Damage to motor vehicles.
Numerous SES crews and emergency services are out undertaking repairs to roads, buildings and critical infrastructure.
While doing this, my wife and I have also been doing a storm clean up as well.
This will be ongoing for days to weeks.
The photos taken during Thursday morning shows what has occurred.
While official wind gusts at weather stations suggested 72 to 75 km/h wind gusts, it is clear that given the level of damage observed, the wind gusts that occurred around Doonside far exceeded the official recordings.
The problem is, there are no weather stations within the Doonside area to record such weather events. Peak winds must have exceeded 100 km/h to cause this level of damage but we will never know.
It is not just Doonside or Blacktown that experienced such storms, similar events occurred elsewhere including:
- Orange (Central West NSW) - Between 11.53 am and 12 noon, peak wind gusts from a thunderstorm topped 109 km/h for a period of 7 minutes.
- Newcastle (Nobby Head) - Between 2.12 and 2.15 pm, a thunderstorm produced peak wind gusts to 119 km/h.
- Central coast - There was one fatality from a passing thunderstorm at Glenworth Valley.
- Queensland - SE region once again impacted just days after a supercell brought hail to 10 cm across parts of Southern Brisbane city.
The images shown in the attached photos are replicated elsewhere. It is interesting to see how cleanup operations occur as this is the first time my wife and I have been directly impacted by such a thunderstorm event. As such, we get to see a cleanup operation unfold within our local area.
